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This is the continuation of the Tasting Menu in La Alqueria. Yesterday, I blogged about the first 4 of 12 courses. Following the first 4 snacks and tapas courses, the next five courses are called simply dishes. This is considered the mains.

The 1st Dish is called the Avocado Cannelloni with Crab and Pumpkin Seed Oil Cream.

They brought the bread as they start the Dish courses. We had a choice of three bread, all warm. Suanne is so modest. When they brought it, she just took one. For me, I told them I wanted one of each. Guess what. Just as our server was about to leave she quickly said she wants the others too. We love the bread.

I had always thought that elBulli’s dishes are small. Some of them are as small as just a spoonful. So, it was a surprise that the Dishes are full mains.

Suanne took a really long bath that afternoon before the dinner at La Alqueria. She was hogging the bathroom wanting to be the prettiest she could be for THE dinner in Spain. She is very inconsiderate. What about me? I want to look handsome too. I need to wash my hair and if I don’t dry it properly, my hair would stand out and look horrible.

Dinner was at 8:30PM. That is when they open for dinner. Dinner at 8:30PM is considered early for people in Spain. The hotel is about 18 km from Seville. 18 km only … remember that.

So we called for a taxi from the hotel as the restaurant is located virtually in the middle of surburb. The ride took longer than we expected. It was because it was a Friday afternoon and people were heading to the beach. The highway was jammed packed with cars.

We thought we get there early so that we can check out the grounds of the five star hotel that La Alqueria is located in. Turned that out we got there right on the dot because of traffic delays.

La Alqueria is located in a hotel called the Hacienda Benazuza elBulli Hotel. The hotel is definite exclusive with room rates starting at €400 for low season! I almost wanted to stay at this hotel (OK, for just ONE night) to make sure we get a table at La Alqueria but as usual Suanne knock senses into me.

La Alqueria is a 2-star Michelin restaurant. To put things in perspective, there are only four 3-star and ten 2-star Michelin restaurants in Spain. The real elBulli in Roses near Barcelona is 3-star. This one is 2-star.

When we got there, the taxi driver said the total ride was €53. But the meter was saying about €40. He said that he gotta to charge extra because the elBulli hotel was out of the way. I wasn’t in the mood to challenge him but I should have. You will know why we were overcharged later on this post. After all it was just a 18km ride.

The La Alqueria is not a very big restaurant. We counted about 12 tables only. It is undoubtedly exclusive because despite the low number of tables, they only have 1 seating a night. They don’t turn the tables at all.

Alright, I know I mentioned this to death but I will mention it again for our reader who stumble onto this post. The elBulli near Barcelona had been the #1 restaurant in the world for many years. It is run by Ferran Adria who is the man who had the biggest influence on modern gastronomy of any chef in the world. The Times had said:

To describe elBulli as “a restaurant” is like describing Shakespeare as “a writer”.

The La Alqueria is opened in 1998 about five years after the original elBulli was built. elBulli achieved it’s 3-star Michelin rating a year before La Alqueria was opened.

We have a server assigned to out table. Oh boy, she is one serious no-nonsense dude. Very prim, very proper. Whatever you ask for she will say “very good”, “of course” and “immediately”. The thing is that her English is not too good. I had a problem understanding what she was saying and she had difficulty with my questions.

As soon as we got seated our server gave us cold towels. We … errr … did not know what to do with that. Wipe the hand? Wipe the face? What? So with our nose held up high, we used the towel to wipe our hands … but it would have been nice to wipe the face too.

I am just so affected by what Brian said in the earlier post about bullfighting. I remember our tour guide at the Bullfighting Museum saying that it is a very passionate topic even in Spain itself. I really think Spaniards are cool people despite the bull and all. So I am not going to respond anymore to the rights or wrong of bullfighting. I have stated enough times my position.

Anyway … I had given way too much weight to this topic on chowtimes. I need to explain this. It is NOT that I wanted to glorify bullfighting. On the contrary I do not. Silly as it may seem, the truth is I wanted to show off the photos I took. You see, there are not many opportunities that I get to use my 70-200mm and I thought some of the shots came out well. That’s why there are so many posts and pictures.

Up until last night, I had wanted to publish one more on bullfighting. It is the one on about the matador who was gored on the neck. From the impact and the precious lost seconds before help came, the matador was completely motionless while bull went at him again and again. I hope the matador survived but it did not look good at all. Anyway, I had decided against putting up another post and instead had embedded the pictures at the bottom of the post here. The password is iagree if you want to see them. Be warned OK?

Changing gears …

Today is our last full day in Seville. There is not a lot of places we wanted to visit. Seville is not really big, certainly not like Barcelona in any sense. There are other places like Isla Magica and all that we could visit in Seville. However, Suanne is not keen on theme parks and neither was I while in Spain. So we took it easy.

This is also the day we will be having dinner in an elBulli restaurant. It is not elBulli but it is the closest to the real deal. More about that later.

Brunch was at a restaurant called Al Alcantina which was recommended by the hotel conceirge. This is located around the central square in Seville historic city center.

We had a table outside the restaurant. Our waitress was really friendly and helpful. No bread here … they served us those thingy above. It was rock hard and definitely on the dry side. We took a couple and then left it alone.

The waitress recommended the Ensaladilla La Alcantina which she said was the prize winner of the Best Classic Tapas in the 2003 Seville Fair of Tapas. Sure, we said … it was worth a try.

€8.70 is how much it costs. It was creamy, served cold and refreshing — absolutely marvelous. We had never had these before. I think it is made with mayo with potatoes and some vegetables.

The puzzling thing is how could this have been classified as tapas? So I did some research and indeed it is considered as SPANISH tapas despite the Russian word in the name.

We had Paella the previous day but got this again. The waitress was persuasive saying that their Paella is different. OK, we said.

The name of the dish is Arroz en paella marinea del dia. €8.70.

We like this paella better. It was drier than those we had earlier which had sauces at the bottom of the plate which makes it so mushy. It was also flavorful. Suanne said the rice was cooked al dente. I thought the word al dente refers only to pasta.

Bill came to €21.60. It is considered OK given that things are more expensive in Spain. If I convert this to Canadian, this is over $30. Now that is expensive, right?

We tried to use the Sevilla Card which is supposed to give us a 10% discount. It took a while before our waitress sorted this out with the card issuer. It appears that our card has the “cultura” on it and that does not come with restaurant discounts.

Don’t get the Seville card. It was not worth it.

After the lunch, we went to this church. It was nothing to shout about really after having seen the Cathedral of Seville. We did not spend a lot of time here.

Let’s talk about el Bulli.

I think I shared about this in chowtimes before. The book above is … (more…)

I had been mulling this question over the weekend but decided to just go ahead. Suanne and I had no idea how bloody this sport is until we actually saw it. So, a word of caution before you proceed reading this post. Some of the pictures are graphic.

We went to the bullfight event on the night of the second day in Seville. The event started at 10PM and stretches until past midnight. The seats are numbered and so we just arrived about 15 minutes before the show.

I noticed that people do dress up for bullfights. I hardly see anyone in shorts or T-shirts. We were kind of under-dressed because we were in Ts and jeans!

We were kind of lost and thought we should just enter by one of the many side entrances. The people at the side entrance took a look at our tickets and pointed us to the grand entrance. He he he … we had choice seats and so we get to enter through the grand entrance.

We love our seat. It was just on the second row and just under the main box. We rented a couple of cushions for an euro each. The cushion sure was useful because otherwise we will be sitting on hard concrete for two hours.

The bad thing is that we were sitting just above a couple of chain smokers. Suanne was quite mad with them. But for me it was perfect spot for photos. I handily brought along the 70-200mm lens along with a 1.6x extender. I had a great time taking pictures.

The arena was not full at all. After all, it was off season. I still do not know why there is an event planned. Maybe it is for tourists? *shrugs*

This was to be a long day. It was because the Bullfight was to start at 10PM. We went back to the hotel to nap before heading out again late at night. I can see now why people tell me that the people in Spain sleep really late.

We went out at 7PM for dinner. There is an East Indian restaurant near the hotel. I wanted to try that because I seriously need real Asian food after so many days in Spain. Paella does not count, even though it is rice. Suanne kiboshed my idea saying I am crazy to want to eat Indian food, of all places, in the middle of Spain. Suanne said Tapas … but one that has toothpicks.

You see, we read that traditional tapas are served with toothpicks. You are charged by the number of toothpicks left behind. It was not hard to find.

This place we went to looked quite traditional. It has low tables and stools. It is also very smokey. We can’t win … if we wanted traditional Spanish Tapas Bar it will be smokey.

It is kind of a self-service place. We take the tapas from the bar on our own and go find our own table. The tapas are replenished with new types every now and then. When they have a new tapas, they bring it to each tables asking if anyone would want them.

Other than that, the only table service is for drinks. We ordered beer and orange juice. It was real strong … it went right to my head immediately. My face flushed up immediately that the tapas server laughed at me when he saw how red my face was.

Besides tapas, they also cook to order. I showed them my list of Spanish food and ask them if they make any of them here. They do!

So we had the Polbo A Feira which is translated as market fair style octopus. It does look spicy, does it? It is not at all. The redness you see is from paprika. It is served with boiled potatoes. The best part of this dish are the … (more…)

After the visit to the Bullfight Museum, we walked to Parque de Maria Luisa. It was a long walk mind you and in hot sun.

Parque de Maria Luisa is a very large park. This is the site of the 1929 Expo. The grand building above is the Plaza de Espana which is built as the Spanish pavilion.

The Plaza de Espana is a large semi-circle of buildings lining a moat with numerous beautiful bridges. In the centre is a large fountain. Well, it was supposed to be a fountain. The moat and the fountain was completely dry because they were doing some work in it. It would have been much cooler if the moat if filled with water. Instead, the entire place was hot and dusty.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVQyW1n5ECY]
One cool thing to note though … The Plaza de Espana is used as a setting for Naboo in Star Wars. The above is the extended scene from Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Cool huh?

There was really nothing to do here except for the War Museum. Actually I don’t really remember the name of the museum anymore. It could be the Military Museum or Arms Museum. These sort of museums are for boys. Suanne was kind of bored. I can see it in her eyes but she tried to pretend to pay attention. I dig these type of museums. It is a small museum unlike the Imperial War Museum and Cabinet War Rooms in London.

Time to eat. After the visit to the Bullfighting Museum in the morning, it just occurred to me that there is one thing that we had not eaten yet in Spain … Rabo de Toro! I remember reading somewhere that the bull killed in the bullfight is sold in the market for its meat. The meat is not prime meat but the best part is the Rabo de Toro.

So we went scouring for a place for Rabo de Toro. We went to a few places asking if they have Rabo de Toro. That drew smiles from a number of places we went to. We finally found one restaurant which turned out to be pretty good which has that.

He he he … you know which part of the bull that the Rabo de Toro is made of?

We sat at the patio and was immediately served olives and water. The olives was salty and sour. For the life of me, I can never learn to appreciate olives. Yet it is so popular around the Mediterranean.

We like our waiter who was superb and speaks English. I asked for Sherry, it being THE drink in southern Spain. Instead, our waiter recommended Vino de Pasas (Raisin Wine). He said it is digestive and is appreciated for its sweet flavour. We had a glass which is only €1.80.

The bread was alright if not too dry for my liking. We ended up ordering two favourite dishes from the Andalusian region. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, here it is … Rabo de Toro! (more…)

Our second day in Seville. The weather forecast was telling us that the day is not going to be as hot as the day before. It was a relieve because on this day we will be walking along the river side.

Not far from our hotel there is a small square by a church that has cafe. It was teeming with people in office attire having breakfast here. So we know that this will be a good place for breakfast. But it also meant that they do not speak English too!

What is worse, it was self-service. We had to order from a window and then when it is ready we had to pick up our order. Being not particularly sure of the system, we had our eyes peeled to the window afraid that we will miss our order when it is ready. Good thing they beckoned us to the window and we picked up the toasts and drinks. They stopped us and asked that we carry a little bottle along too. It turned out to be olive oil.

The breakfast was simple but very good. Best of all it was about the cheapest breakfast we ever had in Spain. It came up to only €4.20. Sweet!

After breakfast, we went walking along the Guadalquivir River. This river is navigable hundreds of miles with up to Seville. During the days of the discovery of the New World, ships laden with treasures and goods would all unload here.

The Torre del Oro is a watch tower which protects the city of Seville in days of old. It is supposed to be a Naval Museum but when we were there it was closed. What a bummer.

Near the Torre del Oro, we began to see sculptures of Matadors. We were near the Bullfight museum.

One of the things we planned to do in Spain was to watch a bullfight. Bullfighting is very much a popular sport in southern Spain unlike in Barcelona where people do not like bullfighting. Our hotel concierge told us that summer is the off season for bullfighting. It was disappointing to us but at least we planned to just visit the Bullfight Museum.

The tour of the Bullfight Museum was free with the Seville Card. It was an eye opener tour for us. We had never knew what bullfighting really is before this tour.

Of all the museums we wanted to visit in Seville was the Archivos de Indias. This museum is the most complete document archive of the history of the discovery of North America. It is not surprising that the Spanish government chooses to locate the archives in Seville because this city has the monopoly of trade with the New World.

Unfortunately, the archive is 99% in Spanish. We walked through the corridors but could only gather bits and pieces of some of the documents and maps. How I wished that it is in English otherwise we would have spent a couple of hours there. The best thing about the Archivos de Indias is that it is very well air conditioned!

The heat in Seville was getting unbearably too hot for us. The temperature almost reached 40C. Worse thing is that there are not much shades and the building fronts does not have awnings. It was so bad that when we get to a shady area, we just stood there for minutes not wanting to cross the street when it meant walking in the sun.

There is a cute little tram service running through the historic city center. We wanted to take it back to near where our hotel is. So we went to a stop and tried to figure out how to take it. We couldn’t make sense of the signboards. We asked and no one could speak English to help us. It is in Seville we felt kind of isolated because it has so little English.

We went to this restaurant which has really powerful air conditioning and nice pastries. It seems to be a great place to have a drink and something to eat … except that it was impossible to communicate with our waiter. The place was very busy and the waiter does not have any patience to help us with our order. So we just said “thank you” and left.

By 4PM we decided to just call it a day.

So, we decided to go to a place where we thought would be better language-wise.

We went to El Cortes Ingles. Yeah, it is a departmental store but it has a great cafeteria. More importantly, people don’t smoke here!

Wrong choice. English is also at a premium here. At least the waiters (in bow ties and tuxedos!) were very professional, polite and patient. The Summer menu above is in Spanish but we already know quite a number of Spanish words. We could piece together some words to know what some of these means. It is a 3-course menu for €9.95.

I remember calculating that we were spending a lot of money on drinks (was almost $40 Canadian already!). We told ourselves that we are bringing two, maybe three, bottles of 2L bottles the next day even if it means breaking my back carrying it in the backpack.

You know, I like the formal-ness in Spain even in serving water in nice glasses. Mind you, this is a cafeteria.

For a cafeteria, the bread was pretty good. They came individually pre-wrapped in a paper bag and served with butter.

Our “primeros” (first) course is Gazpachos. Our first time having this “liquid salad” and we fell in love with this on the first sip!

Gazpacho is a summer favourite in southern Spain and a native dish to the Andalusian region where Seville is located. It is very … (more…)

People told that that visiting Spain in summer is not a good idea because it will be going to be very hot. It was on this first day in Seville that we really felt the heat. After just half a day at the Cathedral of Seville, it became unbearably hot. It was almost 40 C. We had finished off our two bottles of water by late morning.

We decided to stop for a drink. It was a toss up between Starbucks and Haagen Dazs. You know how we decided which one? We walked into both and stayed at Haagen Dazs because their air conditioning is stronger. We each got a real big drink. Suanne got a cake — she can’t resist cakes when she sees that. I felt it was downright expensive which is about $26 Canadian.

Next stop that afternoon was to visit the Real Alcazar. Alcazar is the Spanish word meaning Castle. It phonetically sounds the same right? Actually the word Alcazar is based on the Arabic word al qasr, also meaning castle. The word Real means Royal. So, Real Alcazar means the Royal Castle.

Real Alcazar is still in use by the Spanish royal family as the official residence in Seville. The section is off limits to tourists. We were told that they live … (more…)